The most helpful outcome from the tragic murder–execution–of those two New York City police officers is certainly not the chasm of disrespect manifested by that rank-and-file NYPD rebuke to Mayor Bill de Blasio. City Hall and the NYPD may now be a dysfunctional mix, but the slain officers’ families deserved better than the contemptuous chemistry on display during their formal day of mourning.
It only adds to the tragedy if nothing is learned from the horrific ambush of two of New York’s finest.
A starting point would be a renewed, societal understanding of what police work is all about. It’s about the pledge to protect. It’s about the uncertainty of ending every shift alive. And it’s about trust–and the professionalism that enables it.
It’s not some zero-sum game of cops vs. minority communities. Most cops are not “In The Heat of the Night” casting-call material. Most police stops don’t yield a Dontae Morris.
If we collectively are to dodge a societal bullet on this one, three things have to happen. Short term and longer term.
First, an acknowledgement by someone in authority that the death of Eric Garner–technically characterized as a “homicide” in medical examiner parlance–should never have happened. Not because the unarmed Garner should never have been selling untaxed cigarettes, but because of the obvious incompetence of law enforcement and EMT personnel. Garner didn’t die because he was racially targeted. He died because there was overkill for a petty crime. We saw it.
Second, there is the continued need for police departments to proactively recruit minority officers, even though the challenge, as we well know, is formidable.
Third, black communities have to be proactively part of any solution. A “no snitch” ethos hardly helps. And it’s disingenuous to be demonstrating against police brutality and playing the “Black Lives Matter” card while giving lip service to the ongoing, insidious menace that is well-documented, black-on-black crime.
It was encouraging that here in Tampa–where we’ve known racial unrest and law enforcement tragedy–the new year began with a quiet downtown march that included black clergy, police Chief Jane Castor, Mayor Bob Buckhorn–and black Hillsborough County Commissioner Les Miller, who has a son on the TPD.